The End, 2014-18

The End of the Age of Entitlement, 2014-18

A series of inkjet prints on archival paper digitally reiterating gelatin silver film images. Each is produced as edition of three + two artist’s proofs. Smaller-sized, non-editioned versions are available on request. Enquire here.

These are shadows cast by flash on photographic film without a camera. They record the struggle and flutter of live small cabbage white butterflies Pieris rapae caught in a sudden downpour of rain at night near Lake Tyrrell in the Victorian Mallee. The images, here digitally enlarged, starkly reveal moments of suffering in the umwelt or ‘life-world’ of creatures we habitually ignore. Yet, this butterfly is an introduced species whose presence typifies the growing ecological hybridity of Australia’s remaining indigenous semi-arid landscapes. Portraying small lives indirectly and intimately highlights their delicate pathos whilst symbolizing the vulnerability of that larger life-world, the Mallee ecosystems, of which they have become a part. The artwork is part of Gathering Shadows, a project deploying the triple metaphors of physical touch, cast shadows and invertebrate abjection in order to poetically enunciate the ecological tragedy confronting particular environments – in this instance – Mallee country.

The first piece in the series won the ‘2016 SCOPE Galleries Art Award for Art Concerning Environment’.